


Loyalty

by Grinner_H



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 02:49:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2294156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grinner_H/pseuds/Grinner_H





	Loyalty

This is the kind of night that you hate the most - pregnant with despair and rife with unvoiced anger; _asphyxiating,_ as if the very atmosphere is imbued with the crushing weight of too-loud silence. 

In the center of this chaotic stillness, the beating of his heart is impossibly audible - you can hear its cadence like sneakers upon a blacktop, like a pen against the surface of a wooden desk, _taptaptap._

Squalo stands dressed in nothing but your faded green flannel shirt, draped over his narrow shoulders like a careless afterthought. He's staring out at midnight beyond the borders of the wide open portafinestra of your shared bedroom, the lit cigarette in his hand ignored.

You watch him from your perch on the edge of your bed, drinking in his silhouette. Even in the flickering glow of a distant street lamp, sneaking in to cast disfigured shadows in places barely within reach, Squalo is beautiful. 

He will never stop being beautiful to you.

Some days, you are content to just sit and watch him, losing hours and losing yourself. 

But this is not one of those days. 

So you rise from the bed, come to stand behind him, and reach for the fine edges of his hair. 

You watch him breathe a shuddering breath, fingers closing around the edges of that oversized shirt and pulling it closer against his skin. He lets out this half-resigned, half-frustrated noise between his teeth. _"Idiot."_

You're almost certain you can hear the sound of your heart breaking - this awful, ominous _crack_ that makes your head reel in the most terrifying ways. "I'm sorry."

Squalo huffs, sounding like something's shattered inside him too. "This is all your goddamn fault."

A thousand apologies and a thousand more. It's what you owe him. But every regret and atonement lies stuck within your dry throat like a spiked ball. And all you have to offer is, "I know."

You watch the ash fall off his cigarette, breaking and scattering upon the ground like grains of dull gray sand.

\--

Breakfast is a cup of your favorite Kona coffee and nothing else. 

He drinks it like it's torture, each sip deepening the grimace that's etched upon his sallow face. Perhaps, if circumstances were different, it might be comical. 

Perhaps you'd find it in yourself to be amused, if you weren't so _sad._

"You're gonna make yourself sick," you caution him, like you've done every morning for the past eighteen weeks. You wish he'd look at you. You wish he would yell at you. Maybe scoff or sneer and say something recalcitrant like, _"I can handle a cup of coffee, thanks very much."_

You'd rather have disagreements, massive fights, _anything._

_Anything's_ better than these infernal bouts of silence. 

But Squalo says nothing, painstakingly sipping his - _your_ \- coffee and staring at the patterns on the kitchen table as if he's trying to wear them out with sight alone.

You know he's gonna drink every drop, long after it gets cold.

\--

An hour later, he's abruptly pulling over on a too-busy street; eliciting ear-splitting honks and scathing insults from his fellow motorists.

Squalo blatantly ignores them all in favor of throwing up all over his boots and the side of the road.

"You're disgusting," Bel unhelpfully cackle-calls from the backseat, before dissolving into hysterics.

You inwardly sigh, rubbing soothing circles on Squalo's back and mindfully refrain from saying, "I told you so."

\--

If you could pick someone to blame for this monolithic _fuck up,_ it would be Xanxus.

You're sitting at the grand piano in the den of the Varia castle, staring at Xanxus with all the venom of a million hissing serpents. 

Xanxus, for his part, is sitting in his obscenely large armchair, staring at the pages of a book he's read too often in the last four months. 

You recognize that book. It was a gift from _you._

You and Xanxus - you used to be something like _friends._ But now - right _now_ \- you can't believe how much you hate him.

Your fingers dig unkindly into the fabric of your pants. You're positive they'll leave ugly marks on your thighs, afterward. "Why did you order him to stay?"

Xanxus wordlessly turns a page. The motion makes you want to scream at him, _"Why bother? You've already **memorized** the fucking thing!"_

But it's not what you _really_ want to say. It's not his lack of attention that's breaking you apart, like a sculptor undoing his own creation. 

What you _do_ say is something you've said to Xanxus, to _yourself,_ more times than you can count. The words spill from your lips like poison kisses, corroding your already splintered soul and dragging pieces of your sanity along with it. 

_"He'd be happier with me."_

And it makes you _rage_ \- this insufferable routine which brings no change, this inextricable reality on repeat like Phil Connors on Groundhog Day. If you could, you'd kill yourself. But _you're_ not the one who needs to die. 

\--

But the truth is, if there was anyone to blame for this monumental _train wreck,_ it's _you._

And watching Tsuna stand, head bowed before a monument engraved with the names of Vongola's deceased, is a painful reminder that _Squalo's_ life _isn't_ the only one you royally fucked up.

"I'm sorry," you begin bitterly, because you _know_ that all the apologies you owe won't make a damn thing right, "that I failed you."

You watch Tsuna's fingers trace a name over and over again. You see something break inside him, and he lets out a sob that's so full of anguish, it tears at your skin like nails, like shards of a smashed bottle.

Your entire body tenses in guilt and grief, but you steadfastly disallow yourself the option of running away.

\--

 _How did we end up like this?_ you wonder forlornly, fingers carding gently through silken silver strands. 

By your side, Squalo lies asleep on the lumpy living room couch, curled into himself as if that very position were enough to shut out the entire world. 

_What **happened** to us?_ You don't want to comprehend this pain, but you do. These days, _pain_ is all you know. The notion makes you sick to the deepest depths of your gut. 

In front of you, the coffee table has an empty beer bottle and a full ashtray. You wonder what Squalo was thinking when he drowned his sorrows in alcohol, when he tried to burn his agony away with cigarette after cigarette. It wouldn't be a tough guess - you've _always_ been able to read him like the best book - but you're afraid of all the parts you'd guess _right._

This is a pain far worse than death - watching Squalo move from one arduous day to the next, his once-lively eyes deader than a corpse's, his firebrand spirit extinguished. 

_And it's all your fault._

Of everyone you failed to protect, Squalo's the _one_ person you ardently wish you'd done right by. 

And in one moment, still like bated breath, he shifts and moans your name. It makes you freeze like he'd heard your thoughts. 

"Takeshi. Don't go."

Your insides feel like it's caving in on itself - snapping sinew and crushing bone - and you want nothing more than to anchor yourself to him and never leave.

But all you can do is lean over, kiss the side of his face, and whisper, "I won't. I'm right here."

Squalo doesn't wake up.

\--

You didn't expect it to hurt. You're not quite sure _why_ \- you should have been _glad; relieved,_ 'cause it's what you'd selfishly hoped for these too-long minutes stretched over weeks you can't stop counting. 

But the sight of Squalo lying in his own blood, choking on it, _dying,_ still frightens you. Maybe the image of death is something no human being wants to see. Maybe it's survival instinct or some such shit, and maybe it's none of those at all, 'cause you just can't _stand_ the thought of someone you love in pain.

And it's the look in Xanxus's eyes that frightens you _more_ \- wild with rage and glimmers of fear, yelling for Lussuria who is _not a damn where_ in sight.

You're kneeling by his side, brushing silver-dyed-crimson tendrils of hair from his eyes. And your breath catches, when his dying eyes shift to look _straight at you._

His pale hand shakily reaches out - not _for_ you, but _toward_ Xanxus's own. He touches the back of Xanxus's left palm, the one that still has his gun in its white-knuckled grasp. 

_"Please,"_ Squalo pleads, desperate and startlingly more _alive_ than he's been in too damn long. "Please let me go to him."

You watch Xanxus's eyes go wide, the red in them flashing with something like shock, something like anger and mad, mad grief, something like understanding.

 _"Please,"_ Squalo repeats, urgent like a panicked whisper. 

Xanxus crouches down, pressing the muzzle of his gun against Squalo's sweat-slicked forehead. His hands are shaking. He runs one of them through Squalo's hair over and over, accidentally brushing the side of your finger in the process. You don't think he noticed.

Squalo seems to take comfort in the gesture. He sighs; this quiet, helpless thing and you can feel him slipping away, but his gaze locks with yours and doesn't waver. 

Xanxus's eyes never leave Squalo's. 

And then, he pulls the trigger.


End file.
